Arsenal have won four of their opening five league games, but narrow margins and Brighton’s aggressive press have shown where there is still room to improve.
Arsenal have spent much of the opening month winning games they have not quite finished.
There was nothing particularly alarming about beating Aston Villa 1-0. Arsenal have become very good at those afternoons under Mikel Arteta, and their ability to protect a narrow advantage had helped turn them into champions.
Chelsea was different. Arsenal deserved the win, but David Raya was still making an excellent save from Estêvão in the 89th minute with the score at 2-1. At Sunderland, Bukayo Saka did not put the game beyond reach until seven minutes into stoppage time.
Twelve points from the opening 15 is a strong return all considered. The Gunners had conceded just once in four games before travelling to Brighton and had already shown they could win in different circumstances.
The key issue is Arsenal have not always been ruthless enough.
Napoli was the most extreme example if we boiled it just down to stats. The Gunners produced 26 shots and 4.05 expected goals in Italy, with Martin Odegaard's winner arriving in the 75th minute to help secure three points. Saka missed from close range, Mikel Merino was denied from point-blank range and other chances disappeared either side of the goal.
Napoli were still only one moment away from an equaliser late in a game Arsenal should have put beyond them much earlier. It’s not quite the same as an attacking crisis; take a look at the other side of North London, for example. The Gunners beat Coventry 3-0, with Arsenal two up after 23 minutes, whilst Chelsea were opened up repeatedly after scoring first, then backing off after finding the equaliser. There has been plenty of good attacking football, just not at the consistency needed.
Then came Brighton, and for the first time this season the problem started much further away from goal.
Fabian Hürzeler's side were always likely to ask a different question. Before the weekend, Brighton had recorded a Premier League-high 41 high turnovers. Opponents were taking 52.7 per cent of their touches under high pressure, also the highest figure in the division.
Arsenal had not faced that sort of pressure in their opening four league matches, and from the opening of the match, Arteta could already tell that they were in trouble.
Raya played one attempted pass straight to Yasin Ayari. Bruno Guimaraes was caught during another uncomfortable passage. Brighton went man-to-man, competed aggressively for the next ball and repeatedly stopped Arsenal getting into the calmer possession game they had enjoyed elsewhere.
By the end, Brighton had won possession in Arsenal's final third nine times. No Premier League opponent had managed more against Arteta's side since Liverpool in December 2023.
Afterwards, Arteta spoke about Arsenal losing first duels and second balls, making technical errors after recovering possession and failing to follow the principles required to escape Brighton's man-to-man pressure.
It would be easy to turn that into a sweeping judgement about Arsenal's build-up. Five games is nowhere near enough for that.
Brighton are unusually aggressive without the ball, and pressing Arsenal in the same manner is not something every Premier League side can decide to do next weekend. Man-marking following players creates its own problems. Beat the first pressure and suddenly Saka, Eberechi Eze or Christos Tzolis can have space in front of them rather than another bank of defenders.
Arsenal did beat it occasionally, but couldn't make anything of it.
For all the difficulties at the Amex, they still generated 1.58 xG and two Opta-defined big chances. Brighton finished on 1.33 xG, although their four big chances and the opportunities they created late in the match reflected the danger Arsenal were repeatedly putting themselves in.
Brighton scored three times. Arsenal did not score at all. That is where Saturday starts to look less isolated from what came before it.
Arsenal's problem at Brighton was initially getting into the positions from which they normally hurt teams. Once they did get there, Arteta himself said there were spells when his side gained control and opened Brighton up, only to fail to finish those attacks with the required quality.
We could have had the same conversation after Napoli.
Or Sunderland.
Even Chelsea remained alive considerably longer than Arsenal would have wanted.
There is something slightly strange about criticising a team for winning football matches, but when the wins aren’t comfortable regularly, questions should be raised. Arsenal's 1-0 victory at Villa was their 14th Premier League win by that scoreline across the previous three seasons, six more than any other club over that period.
That is not an accident. Arteta's Arsenal can defend their box, manage difficult periods and survive when a game becomes tighter than they intended. That grit, mentality and talent at the back helped the Gunners get those results over the line. Arsenal having 5 players in the PFA Premier League Team of the Year, all of them Arsenal’s defensive players (and Rice), shows how reliant Arsenal was this last season.
But what happens when the reliability isn't as reliable? Brighton scored twice from the edge of the area, from almost identical shots. They didn't need to enter the 18-yard box where the Gunners were yet to concede from in the league. They shot on sight and found the net.
But it shouldn’t need to happen so often, and Brighton has now given Arsenal’s future opponents a fresh case study to break through the setup, which had been so difficult to break down. Teams capable of pressing Arsenal that aggressively will have seen the mistakes it produced, even if reproducing Hürzeler's approach is much easier said than done.
Arteta does not need to rip up the football which produced four straight league wins. Arsenal need to be cleaner when opponents attack their build-up before they can settle, but the bigger demand is still at the other end of the pitch.
Arsenal did not reinforce their front line in the summer. The players already there will have to find more goals between them, particularly when matches do not produce the volume of opportunities seen in Naples.
That has already been the reality for much of the league season. Arsenal had 11 shots against Sunderland, 7 at Villa, and 13 at Chelsea. When the number of opportunities is closer to that level, there is less room for the sort of misses they may have got away with in earlier wins.
Four victories from five remain a strong start. They have also allowed Arsenal to live with matches staying open longer than they should. Brighton was the first time the margins went completely the other way, and without another forward arriving to alter the equation, Arteta has to find more from the attack he already has.
